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I hate it when I become dependent on a piece of technology and its creator decides to stop updating it. I feel kind of lost and directionless. I have been frustrated trying to find methods of keeping up with replies to comments I leave on blogs without subscribing to a bunch of comment RSS feeds that will clog up my feed reader. So as a result, I feel like I have just dropped out of the conversations I start. I used coComment‘s Firefox extension. It was great. Every time someone replied to a comment thread in which I had left a comment, the little coComment button turned orange. New comments! I could easily go check them and see if any of the replies were to me, and I could continue the discussion if they were. After Firefox 4.0 came out, coComment was broken. It’s been like that since March, and despite several comments in their help forums, no one representing coComment has said whether they intend to update the extension or let it die. And I can’t find an alternative. You know of one? If so, please, please tell me about it. Some folks allow you to subscribe to replies via email, but not everyone has that feature enabled on their blogs.

Another frustration: I used to use a WordPress plugin called Apture to add links to all kinds of content. I could click on a button in my post editor, and I could search for information on the Web using a variety of search engines and easily link to books on Amazon or Wikipedia articles. I thought it was great because it made writing posts a snap. Then Apture decided not enough people were using the plugin, and they pulled it. It didn’t even work if you already had it installed. I was not alone in my frustration on this one, but it looks like the folks at Apture felt that what users liked most was the Apture Highlights, which allow readers to highlight text and search right from your page without leaving it. Well, I don’t care because I can always open a new tab rather than leave a site. What I liked was the ability to easily create posts that had links to relevant material. I found a great Amazon plugin called WordPress Amazon Associate that enables me to easily link to books and other items for sale at Amazon the same way that Apture did, but there is not another plugin that does everything Apture did.

I think a lot of Delicious users had a similar panic attack when it was announced that Yahoo intended to “sunset” Delicious. After Chad Hurley and Steve Chen acquired Delicious, users had a reprieve from losing a social bookmarking service they loved (I had moved on to Diigo and cross-posted links at Delicious so that anyone subscribing to my Delicious bookmarks would still receive them).

It is anyone’s prerogative to take their toys and go home, I guess, but I just find it frustrating when I really enjoyed playing with those toys and can’t find any like them to have for my own. I also don’t know how to build them myself—which is a fixable problem, but a one that will not be fixed without a whole lot of work.

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I have been very absent from Twitter and from this blog lately. My education buddies might be wondering what happened to me. My reading buddies have seen me more often on my book blog. I have been retreating into some very fine reading lately. If you are looking for a good book, I have several to recommend.

The school year is winding down. We have two weeks before final exams. After that, graduation. Four former students came by to visit this week, and it was wonderful to see them. I am so proud of my students. They are doing such wonderful things.

Next year, as I move into the position of Technology Integration Specialist, some things will change for me. I will be teaching two English classes, but my primary responsibility will be in technology. The more I think about it, the more right it feels for me to do this. It seems like a case of the the circumstances lining up just right—I decided to pursue a master’s in tech and finished just as my school decided to focus on integrating technology more. I have had some weird, complicated feelings about the move. One would think that such a positive change wouldn’t introduce any sort of conflicted emotions, but I did wonder if I was making the right move for myself. I think I am making the right move for my school. I think trying to sort out how I feel about all of it has contributed to my silence online lately. Even though it is a good change, it is still a major change. Please be patient with me and my quiet little blog while I’m figuring it all out.

QR Code readers are readily available for smart phones, but this is the first one I’ve seen that uses your computer’s webcam. Great for times when you want to look at sites that use flash or for people who cannot use a smart phone.

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I don’t charge for lessons or content I share here. I don’t have ads. If you find anything I share valuable, check out these links. Using my Amazon link to buy products on Amazon or buying my lessons at Teachers Pay Teachers helps support my work. Stitch Fix is a great service for women who don’t have a lot of time to shop. If you check it out using my referral link, I receive a discount. UbD Educators is always looking for active contributors to carry on Grant Wiggins’s work.